Underdog

by Laurien Berenson

  My puppy was snoozing in my lap. I scratched her muzzle and wondered what sorts of psychological insights Aunt Peg was mining about me. Then Faith reached out and licked my palm with her long pink tongue, thumping her tail contentedly, and I figured I was doing okay.

  Davey, Faith, and I packed up and went home that morning. I needed a break from dog shows; and aside from waving Faith’s entry under my nose once or twice, Aunt Peg didn’t protest much. I found out later that Peaches had gotten her second major; and that Charlie, with a pick-up handler on the end of the lead, had won both the remaining groups. Apparently Florence Byrd had been right—fame or notoriety, it all worked the same in the end. With only a handful of shows remaining in the year, the wins from Springfield weekend were enough to assure that the Quaker Oats Award was hers.

  Amazingly, it turned out that the Cocker was lucky to have even been in contention. The bullet fired from Angie’s gun had gone in through the grilled door of his crate and blasted out through the wooden ceiling. Charlie, presumably lying down when the commotion started, had been asleep below the line of fire. Still, Angie had come within a hair’s breadth of blowing away her meal ticket and the irony was lost on none of us. Mrs. Byrd took the Cocker home for good at the end of the weekend.

  During my lunch break on Tuesday, I wrote her a note of congratulations and dropped it in the mail. I wondered if Florence Byrd had known about Dirk’s other source of employment, and decided she probably had. She didn’t seem like the type of woman who would relinquish any control if she could help it.

  After lunch, I worked with my third graders. Timmy hadn’t done his homework and after I got the others started working on maps of South America, I sat down beside him and asked him why.

  His big brown eyes were guileless. “I didn’t want to.”

  “Homework isn’t always something you want to do. It’s something you need to do.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” He drew in a deep breath and I watched his narrow chest fill with air. “There are lots of things I need to do. Do you ever feel like you’re being pushed all different ways at once?”

  I nodded slowly, feeling for him. “What do you do when that happens?”

  “I hide.” He sounded almost proud.

  “Where?”

  “In a book, sometimes. And sometimes I just tune everything out. I don’t even have to go anywhere at all.”

  Coping mechanisms. We all had them. What a shame Timmy had to develop his so early. “Sometimes I hide, too,” I told him.

  “But you’re a grown-up!”

  “Even grown-ups get confused sometimes. But hiding doesn’t help, does it?”

  “Not really.”

  Not really. I guessed I’d found that out too. I wondered if Sam was back yet. I wondered if he’d call when he got in.

  I reached out and slipped my hand over Timmy’s. “Sometimes you have to confront the things that are bothering you. You have to say to yourself, ‘I’m doing okay. I’m a really good kid and I’m doing the best I can.’ That’s the most anybody can ever ask of you.”

  “What if my best isn’t good enough?”

  “It is good enough. What isn’t good enough is not trying.” I picked up the half completed homework assignment.

  “You want me to finish it?”

  “I do.”

  Timmy looked over to where the other children were working. “What about my map?”

  “That, too.”

  “I won’t have time.”

  “Yes, you will.” I got a piece of construction paper and lined up a set of markers. “I’ll help.”

  “Is that allowed?”

  “Just for today. Tomorrow you won’t need me. Tomorrow you’re going to finish your own homework.”

  Timmy cracked a smile. “Don’t forget, Chile’s at the bottom and Venezuela’s at the top.”

  “I’ll try to get it right.”

  The homework and the map both got done and went in on time. A small victory, but a victory nonetheless. As the class lined up and left the room to go to Art, Timmy was trading jokes with another boy from his desk group. I sighed as I watched them go. Regardless of what I’d said, there are times when your best doesn’t feel nearly good enough.

  Sam announced his return by inviting himself over that evening. He showed up with pizza and a movie, which made him an instant hit with Davey. I bent the rules and let my son eat in the living room in front of the television.

  No fool she, Faith elected to keep him company. She’d only been with us a matter of weeks, but the Poodle puppy was such an integral part of the family, I couldn’t imagine how we’d done without her. Davey and Faith curled up on the couch together, limbs comfortably intertwined, pizza box within easy reach. I hoped the puppy would let him eat at least a piece or two.

  While the movie played, Sam and I sat in the kitchen and compared notes on our respective weekends. His sister was fine. His brother-in-law was up for a promotion. The nephews were hellions. They’d eaten leftover turkey for three days straight. In other words, a perfectly normal family visit.

  “It was good to get away,” said Sam. “It’s even better being back.”

  I told him what had happened at Springfield. Actually I elaborated on the sketchy details I’d given upon his arrival when he noticed the purple bruise extending along my jaw line.

  “I never would have guessed it was Angie,” he said.

  “Me neither. But then I guess we’re all pretty good at hiding that part of ourselves we don’t want anyone else to know.”

  “Not me.” Sam spread his hands. “I’m an open book.”

  “Really? What about that blonde I found at your house last summer? Susan, wasn’t it? The one in the tight dress who was supposedly giving you information?”

  “She was.”

  “Yeah,” I said, grinning. “Right.”

  His hand came across the table, fingers skimming lightly over the inside of my wrist. “My investigative technique is very thorough.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  His other hand cradled the back of my neck. His palm was at the pulse point in my throat. Both of us could feel the pounding. “When I know what I want, I don’t ever give up.” He smiled lazily. “What time does Davey go to bed?”

  “Soon.” I looked at the clock above the sink. “Very soon.”

  “Good.”

  “And after that?”

  Sam’s chair scraped on the floor as he drew it closer. So close that I could feel the heat emanating from his body. His lips came up next to my ear as he whispered, “Keep your options open.”

  “I’ll do that.” I felt ready for anything.

  With luck, I might even get it.

  If you enjoyed Laurien Berenson’s

  UNDERDOG

  then turn the page for an exciting sneak peek

  of Melanie Travis’s debut in

  A PEDIGREE TO DIE FOR,

  now on sale wherever

  paperback mysteries are sold!

  One

  There’s a lot to be said for dying in the midst of something you love. But fond as Uncle Max was of his Poodles, I doubt that he’d ever envisioned himself being found dead on the cold, hard kennel floor, his curled fingers grasping at the open door of an empty pen.

  For their part, the Poodles didn’t seem to think much of the idea either. All seven of the big black dogs were scratching at their doors and whining when Aunt Peg came out the next morning looking for Max, who was inexplicably missing from her bed when she woke up. The moment she saw him, she knew what had happened. The Turnbull men weren’t known for their strong hearts; the doctor had warned Max more than once to slow down. But in the end, all the things they’d done together—giving up smoking, taking up walking, watching their cholesterol—hadn’t made the slightest bit of difference.

  Not one to panic when composure served better, Aunt Peg had closed her husband’s eyes, then covered him with a blanket before picking up the phone and calling for an ambulance.

  I
learned all this from my brother Frank, whose name she’d supplied when asked by the police if there was someone they could call. One look at Aunt Peg and they must have realized that the sedatives the paramedics had so thoughtfully left behind were going to go to waste. That’s when they started making comforting noises about next of kin.

  We’ve never been the type of family to advertise our emotions. Aunt Peg would no sooner keen and wail than join the chorus line of the Rockettes. Nevertheless Frank had arrived prepared to offer whatever support was needed. That none was needed soon became apparent when Aunt Peg declared that his hovering was making her nervous and sent him home.

  Now, three days later, Frank was kneeling beside me in the front pew of Saint Mary’s Church in Greenwich. He looked every bit as uncomfortable as I felt when the rest of the funeral party trooped up to the altar to receive communion. It was painfully obvious that we were the only two to remain behind.

  Thanks to my Aunt Rose, Max’s sister and a member of the order of the Sisters of Divine Mercy, the church was full. As the priest began dispensing hosts from the golden chalice, I pushed aside the missals that littered the pew, sat back, and resigned myself to a long wait. Two by two, the sisters glided by, their rubber-soled shoes noiseless on the church floor. Many, I noted absently, were of the old school, which meant that they still wore the dark habits and crisp white wimples I remembered so vividly from my youth.

  The soft rustle of cloth, the muted clacking of polished rosary beads that swung from the sisters’ waists, both were sounds from the past. For a moment, I found myself transported back to the narrow halls of the convent school where I’d been raised. It wasn’t a trip I enjoyed. Some Catholics refer to their faith as something that has lapsed. I tend to think of mine as expired.

  Until that afternoon, it had been years since I’d been inside a church. Five years, to be exact, since an icy patch of road had sent my parents’ car careening down a steep embankment and into a river, leaving me—newly married and newly pregnant—also newly orphaned. Bob, my husband then, ex now, maintained at the time that anyone who had reached the age of twenty-five was simply too old to qualify for orphan status.

  “I know what I feel!” I wanted to shout at him. In later years, I wouldn’t have been so reticent. Later we shouted about a lot of things.

  Still, I had Bob to thank for my son, and in my mind, that more than evened the score. Davey was home now with a sitter, no doubt spurning the glorious May weather to watch Oprah Winfrey on TV. There’d be plenty of time later for him to learn about funerals—and about people who die long before you’re ready to say goodbye.

  A throat cleared scratchily, and I looked up to find Aunt Peg standing above me. One of the first to go to the altar, she was now ready to return to the pew. Quickly I stood up to let her by.

  Behind her came Aunt Rose, Sister Anne Marie to the other nuns. Her head was bowed, her eyes half-closed. Her fingers were braced together at the tips, forming a slim arrow that pointed upward toward the heavens. In contrast to Aunt Peg’s grim-lipped frown, her expression had a soft, unmolded quality. She was talking to her God, I realized. Uncomfortable, I looked away.

  The line at the communion rail dwindled, then finally ended. The sisters glided back to their pews. At the altar, the priest mumbled the remaining words of the mass before offering a blessing to the assemblage.

  I was turning to retrieve my purse from the bench when the sisters began to sing. Their voices rose, filling the large church with the harmonious cadence of a well-rehearsed choir. I straightened, then paused to listen. The hymn was Latin, its words vaguely familiar. But it was the music itself that reached out to me; the voices joined as one sent a tingle racing up the length of my spine. The sound was pure and sweet and uplifting. For a moment, I could almost believe that the sisters were, as I’d been taught years before, in the business of sending souls to heaven.

  I waited until the song ended before leaving the pew. Uncle Max, who’d always had a dramatic flair, would have loved the pageantry of it all. As a child, in the years before the family drifted apart, I’d found him fascinating. Everything about Uncle Max was just slightly outsize; he had no use for the ordinary, and little tolerance for anyone who did. He enjoyed beauty and style, and surrounded himself with plenty, like the kennel full of Standard Poodles that he bred and exhibited. The funeral mass, with all its pomp and ceremony, would have suited him just fine.

  I rode to the cemetery in the first limousine with Frank and Aunt Peg. Aunt Rose was curiously absent. Perhaps she felt the chauffeur-driven Lincoln was too ostentatious for her station in the world. Or perhaps the impression I’d gotten over the years that she and Aunt Peg didn’t get along was true.

  Aunt Peg was silent during the drive, and Frank and I followed suit. Somehow I didn’t feel I had the right to intrude. The dark brim of a fedora was pulled low over her eyes; the set of her shoulders was stiff. Whatever emotions she was feeling, she kept them to herself.

  The graveside ceremony was brief. In keeping with family tradition, there were no histrionics, only a quiet prayer beside the coffin. As we turned to leave, I heard a quiet sigh.

  “Goodbye, Max,” Aunt Peg whispered. Her lower lip trembled briefly, then stilled.

  Walking back toward the line of parked cars, I reached out impulsively and took her hand in mind. “If there’s anything at all I can do . . .”

  Little did I know.

  Please turn the page for

  an exciting sneak peek of

  Laurien Berenson’s

  DOG EAT DOG

  Now on sale wherever

  mysteries are sold!

  One

  Phone calls in the middle of the night never mean good news. Something’s wrong, or somebody needs help. Otherwise they wouldn’t be waking you up. The way I see it, any call you have to regain consciousness for is one you don’t want to get.

  I’m a mother, so when the phone began to ring on that cold March night, I was instantly awake. The fact that my son, Davey, is only five, and that I’d tucked him safely into bed right down the hall several hours earlier, didn’t dull the maternal reflexes one bit. I was already reaching for the receiver before the end of the first ring.

  To do that, I had to maneuver around Sam Driver, whose long, lean body lay between me and the phone on the night table. He opened one eye as I slithered across his chest and smiled appreciatively. Neither one of us had been asleep. We were just dozing contentedly; warm, satisfied, and utterly pleased with ourselves, enjoying a last few minutes of cozy harmony before Sam had to get up and go home.

  I trailed a kiss across his chest and reached for the receiver. Before the phone was halfway to my ear, I could hear the insistent thump and twang of a lively country music tune. Immediately I felt better. It was a wrong number; it had to be.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey Mel, guess who?”

  I had no intention of guessing, nor did I have to. I hadn’t heard the voice in years, but I recognized it right away. It belonged to Bob Travis, my ex-husband.

  I glanced at Sam. He lifted a brow. I levered my weight up off him, yanked the cord until it stretched to the other side of the bed, then sat up and clutched the blanket to my breasts.

  “Melanie? You there?”

  Could I say no? I wondered. Was there any possibility of getting away with that? Probably not.

  “I’m here.”

  “It’s been a while, huh?”

  He was shouting into the phone, probably to make himself heard over the music blaring in the background. A woman, her voice tinny like it was coming from a juke box, wailed about losing her man. The Bob I remembered had been a rock and roll man. Country western? No way. But then a lot could have changed in four and a half years.

  “A while,” I agreed. There was a moment of silence and I let it hang.

  If Bob had something to say, let him figure out how to start. I wasn’t going to make it easy for him, any more than he’d made things easy for me when he’d
packed up the car and run away from home one day when Davey was just ten months old. Bob had made his choices; among them, child support payments that had dried up in the first six months, and a presence in his son’s life that was limited to a small framed picture on the kitchen shelf. As far as I was concerned, he was on his own.

  I heard the soft pad of footsteps in the hallway and the door to the bedroom pushed open. It wasn’t Davey, but rather our ten month old Standard Poodle puppy, Faith. She sleeps on Davey’s bed, so I knew he was okay. If he’d been awake, she wouldn’t have left him.

  Faith trotted across the room and leapt up to land lightly on the bed. Sam loves dogs and has Poodles of his own. He patted the mattress beside him, where I’d been lying happily only moments before. The big black puppy turned twice, then laid down.

  “Have you been missing me, darlin’?” said Bob. “I’ve been missing yew.”

  He had to be kidding. I wondered if he was drunk. And where had he gotten that accent? I’d heard he’d gone to Texas, but somehow I couldn’t picture button-down Bob turning into a good old boy. Maybe after a few beers, the lyrics from the juke box had gotten stuck in his head and the only way he could think to get rid of them was by calling me up and passing them along.

  Sam tugged at the blanket to get my attention. “Who is it?” he mouthed silently.

  “Bob,” I said.

  Sam frowned.

  “Right here, darlin’,” the voice on the phone said cheerfully.

  “Stop calling me that!” I said, irritated. This aspect of my relationship with Sam was new enough to still feel fragile. I’d hate for him to think that I made a habit of fielding late night calls from my ex-husband. “What’s the matter with you? Are you sure you have the right number?”

  “I could hardly be calling all the way to Connecticut by mistake, now could I?”

  “I don’t know, Bob. It’s been a long time. I really don’t know anything about you anymore.”

  “Well darlin’, that’s about to change. In fact, that’s the reason for my call.”